The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  By the time he’d made a circuit of the entire deck, the seas had calmed, but not Phaedor’s wind. The captain was giddy.

  To entertain himself during his lengthy circling, Felix pondered the strange interaction between the High Lord and the zanthyr. He’d never seen Marius so discomposed—though Felix admitted that spending a week on a boat with the zanthyr could put most anyone into a foul humor—but to then get nearly bent in half and just walk away afterwards like nothing had happened? That made no sense at all.

  Neither did the zanthyr’s caution to stay alert.

  The one thing Felix had learned about Phaedor was that if he didn’t want you to know something, he just wouldn’t answer you. So when he did answer you in a way that hinted at something, well...it was worth your time to try to figure out what he was hinting at.

  Except...most of the time Felix had about ten percent of the information he needed to solve the answer and about ninety percent of the frustration of not being able to work it out, with the result being the same as if the zanthyr hadn’t answered him at all, except that he had a hundred percent more irritation, making him pretty sure that in those instances the zanthyr had said whatever he’d said just to annoy him.

  For example, that morning Felix had claimed the zanthyr was showing off to the High Lord, but clearly, in Phaedor’s estimation, the morning’s staggering show, which had flattened the seas and abraded everyone’s skin with magic, represented barely a belch of his power—and the ladylike kind at that, the type that hides behind a close-lipped smile during polite conversation.

  So if he hadn’t been showing off when he’d pinned the High Lord to the railing and hovered over him like a god studying his creation, what had the zanthyr been doing?

  And why in the holy name of his Aunt Bruna’s goat had Phaedor told Felix to stay alert?

  Felix was just rounding the stern veranda for the fourth time when his diligent circling paid off and she appeared—Francesca da Mosta, Commander of the Imperial Adeptus, goddess in human form.

  Usually she wore black fatigues beneath a hip-length, belted tabard emblazoned with the crest of the Adeptus. But that morning the commander wore her long, honey hair draped loosely across one shoulder, and her filmy, opalescent robe made her look like a divine confection ready for tasting. She walked on the High Lord’s arm, but Felix barely noticed him for Francesca’s radiance.

  Some of the rumors about Francesca da Mosta asserted that she was descended of the gods. Most of them claimed she was a nymph, a daughter of Tethys. No one knew her actual native strand—at least no one of Felix’s acquaintance—for she could wield every strand of elae as though she’d been born to it. As far as Felix was concerned, the Adeptus commander had been put on this earth just to torment his dreams.

  The High Lord pointed to the dark blur of land in the distance and said something low into Francesca’s ear. She smiled, laughed lightly. Then they started aft, where Felix stood quite obviously staring.

  Whereupon, Francesca’s lovely hazel eyes found his.

  Felix immediately got hard. He shifted his tunic around in the front and tried to look purposeful as he started for the nearest stairs, but it was a challenge to pull off with his cock at full parade attention.

  Sancto Spirito, but the force of her gaze practically drove him into the wall. For the flash of an instant as he crossed directly in front of her, Felix got the image of the commander standing in her usual black, arms crossed, her hazel eyes studying him beneath one dangerously arched eyebrow.

  But he banished this unwelcome vision, along with the feeling of culpability it roused, and hurried below.

  Apparently because he was masochistic and seeking more torture in the form of lost coin—never mind his lost dignity—Felix headed for the stern lounge on the terzo deck where the Caladrians spent their hours gaming. The moment he gained the landing, however, a cold, prickling sensation halted him.

  A sailor pushed on past him down the passageway, but Felix felt like he’d been dunked into a vat of icy water. Except there wasn’t actually anything around him but the lingering smell of lemon oil.

  The sailor turned a corner at the end of the corridor without erupting into screams or having his head bitten off by something unnatural, which boded well for Felix’s immediate future. He took a tentative step into the passageway, and then another.

  He scanned the premises as he proceeded on, with the zanthyr’s caution to stay alert suddenly weighing heavy in his thoughts. Wielder’s lamps lit the passageway, giving the oiled paneling a golden glow, but with every step, Felix felt like he was moving through chilled jelly. And not the sweet kind. More the kind that his Great Aunt Vera favored, which was sour and possessed of odd, unidentifiable lumps.

  The chill grew more apparent and Felix more nervous the farther on he pressed, so that by the time he reached the lounge at the far end, he knew with cold certainty that something menacing was looming right behind him.

  Felix practically threw himself through the double doors at the end of the corridor and sort of spun-tripped-staggered backwards as he looked back down the hall.

  It was empty.

  “Hey, testa di cazzo,” Vincenzé was arranging the cards in his hand, “come to bleed more coin through your nose? Just how deep are Papa Sarcova’s pockets, eh?”

  Felix stood watching the doors swing shut on the passageway, feeling clammy and weirdly hot at the same time. He rubbed his tingling arms as he turned to face the Caladrians—

  And froze.

  Beyond the table where the Caladrians were gaming stood a man Felix had never seen before, which was a wonder, considering they’d been at sea for a week.

  The man wore his elegant raven hair swept back and was stupidly tall. Like, N’abranaacht tall. He stood in profile to Felix with hands clasped behind his back, gazing out the wide wall of mullioned windows as if he owned the joint. From the looks of the coat he was wearing, he might’ve owned the whole bloody ship, except Felix knew this ship belonged to the High Lord di L'Arlesé.

  Felix glowered at the stranger while scrubbing his tingling arms. “Who the hell is that guy?”

  “What guy?” Vincenzé was frowning at his cards.

  “What do you mean, what guy?” Vincenzé could be such an ass. Felix flung a hand at the man, who had turned and was half-smiling at Felix now, all handsome and superior-like, as if to say, I would’ve had Francesca da Mosta begging me to take her. “Only the dickhead standing right behind you.” Any guy who smiled like that had to be a dickhead.

  “The only dickhead I see is you, stronzino.” Giancarlo slapped down a card and grumbled something. The sailor beside him dealt him another card.

  Felix turned his glower on the Caladrians. It would be just like that pair to make some stupid bet to see which one of them could fool Felix longer.

  A couple of days ago they’d tried to convince him that the stag’s head hanging in the dining room was actually a whole stag, and its arse was hanging out the other side of the wall in the library. Felix wasn’t sure what had chafed him more about that scenario—that they thought he was stupid enough to believe them, or that they were so sure he’d never set one foot in the library as to already know the truth, even on a ship where there was nothing bloody better to do than read books all day long.

  As a point of fact, he had been in the library, more than once...but only because Francesca da Mosta spent a lot of her spare time in there.

  Felix sucked on a tooth and kept the gaming table between himself and the stranger.

  “Felix, why are you mooning at the purser?” Vincenzé asked, more to his cards than to Felix himself.

  Felix didn’t see the purser anywhere in the room—and he well recalled that guy, because the man always put a hand firmly on his coin purse and shoved his spectacles up his nose before pointedly looking down it at Felix.

  Giancarlo tossed a coin into the pot and looked around. “The purser?” He returned his colorless eyes to Vincenzé. “What purser?”

/>   That’s what Felix wanted to know.

  Vincenzé folded his cards in his hand and looked hard at his cousin. “Che cavolo, he’s right behind me, eh?”

  “Che palle, and I’m the High Lord.” Giancarlo pointed definitively at the stranger. “That’s the carpenter’s mate, Ruffalo.”

  “Ruffalo?” The fourth sailor among their number turned a bewildered look between the two Caladrians. “Sorry to disappoint you, mates, but that’s Dax, the quartermaster’s second.”

  Round about then, Felix started getting really nervous.

  The others all exchanged a look, slow-like, their expressions revealing similar suspicions that this had to be a ruse, and then falling into unease when they all saw sincerity reflected back at them.

  That’s when the four men shoved abruptly to their feet. It was actually rather spectacular to see, but Felix missed it mostly because he couldn’t make his eyes move away from the stranger.

  Who smiled.

  Sancto Spirito, but that was the smile of Death. Felix’s insides went all wormy. He wasn’t even sure there was anything alive behind that smile, but if there was, Felix was sure he didn’t want to meet it.

  Something suddenly made him think of N’abranaacht—probably the way the man had him similarly quaking in his boots. But N’abranaacht had this oppressive menace to him, like he would enjoy sitting there watching you slowly suffocate within the gigantic cloud of his self-importance, while this asshole just felt like The End. Icy and cold and all jagged edges, with a razor gaze formed of bleak unmaking.

  Felix called him a name that put sexual intercourse and bodily excrement in colorful combination.

  Then everything went haywire.

  Vincenzé dove across the table and tackled Giancarlo, who went down beneath a tumble of chairs and his cousin’s lithe form. They scrabbled for possession of Vincenzé’s sword, with the wielder straddling his truthreader cousin and the latter bucking like a wild stallion. One sailor started banging his head against the table, while the other screamed and clawed at his own eyes.

  Felix shouted at the Caladrians, and then, somehow finding his head, grabbed hold of Vincenzé’s sword arm and hauled him back before he could cleave his cousin in half. They scrabbled for a bit before Vincenzé fell on top of him, hissing and cursing, and his elbow caught Felix in the jaw.

  Felix saw stars.

  Vincenzé kicked him in the gut for good measure. Felix tasted bile. He curled into a ball on the floor and tried not to pass out. Vincenzé took up his sword while staring at Felix through blackly murderous eyes.

  The lad was sure the Caladrian was about to decapitate him when Giancarlo tackled his cousin anew, and they both tumbled into the table.

  And all the while, the stranger just smiled, quiet-like, as though admiring a grand work of art.

  Felix was wondering despondently why he wasn’t mad like the others when an anvil force pressed upon him, expelling all the meager breath from his lungs—

  The Caladrians flew apart to crash into opposite walls of the lounge.

  The sailors instantly collapsed where they stood.

  And the zanthyr appeared in the middle of the room within a palpable sphere of power. It hummed and vibrated in Felix’s chest and kept the zanthyr’s cloak floating on its tides.

  Phaedor fixed his emerald eyes on the stranger. “Baelfeir.”

  The latter’s smile slowly widened. “Phaedor.” He opened his arms in welcome. “You hardly seemed surprised to see me.”

  “If you didn’t intend to announce yourself, you shouldn’t have sent a card of calling through Marius di L'Arlesé.”

  “And here I thought I was being subtle.”

  In the flash of an instant, Felix thought he heard someone screaming. He pushed up on one elbow and looked around, but everyone else was down for the count.

  Phaedor’s gaze flicked across the stranger. “This is a new look for you.”

  Baelfeir looked down at himself, then lifted the zanthyr a pleased half-smile. “Remind you of anyone? The whole head-of-a-bull routine is trite now. Sadly, it seems to be the only image humanity has retained of me.”

  “You left your mark as you intended.”

  “Ah, yes.” Baelfeir’s electric blue gaze sparkled meaningfully. “My mark.”

  It was about this time that Felix realized who this Baelfeir actually was and stifled a groan. He was really starting to regret getting out of bed that morning.

  Phaedor purr-growled, “The boy’s of no use to me if his mind is broken.”

  The way the Demon Lord smiled at this made Felix cold inside all over again.

  To make matters worse, he felt like he was missing some really important detail that would make sense out of the insanity, but no matter how he reached for it, the thought wouldn’t materialize.

  Baelfeir crossed his arms. “And what will you offer in trade?”

  Phaedor’s gaze tightened. “What do you want?”

  “I have questions.”

  “You might’ve simply asked them.”

  “And you’d be forthcoming with answers?” Baelfeir chuckled. “I know you too well for that to play.” He held up one hand and the room darkened with smoke. “Come—and bring the boy. I’m curious to know how he saw through my illusions.”

  The next thing Felix knew, the zanthyr was hauling him to his feet. He swooned in Phaedor’s hands. Vincenzé’s right hook had really packed a punch, apparently.

  Smoke choked the room until all Felix saw was darkness, but he sensed within it another form, inhuman, gargantuan in its aspect, almost as if the smoke itself was the other and that other was infinite. The perception made his insides quiver violently.

  “And how is your lovely sister?” came Baelfeir’s voice out of the shadows.

  “Pay her a visit and find out for yourself.”

  The darkness resolved to the accompaniment of Baelfeir’s laughter.

  Felix found himself standing in snow up to his knees on a high mountain ridge. A chain of craggy peaks surrounded them, gilded by daybreak. The air bit his skin and burned in his lungs. He immediately started shaking.

  Phaedor placed a hand on his shoulder, and warmth spread back into his freezing limbs. Felix gave the zanthyr a look of gratitude peppered liberally with what in thirteen hells is going on?

  Then he thought about the origins of that curse and gulped a swallow. His eyes shifted uncomfortably to Baelfeir. The Warlock smirked at him.

  Phaedor left Felix in a cocoon of warmth that was rapidly melting the snow around him and walked to join the Demon Lord at the edge of the mountain’s lip. The deep snow simply separated before his striding feet, as water parting around a stone. The howling wind tore at his cloak and whipped his dark hair into his eyes. As it passed Felix’s ears, it carried the echo of screaming.

  Baelfeir looked to Phaedor as the zanthyr gained his side. “How can you abide it?” Gone was the aloof amusement. His expression had become shadowed. “Look what’s become of the tapestry.”

  “I am aware of its pattern.”

  “Never mind the pattern—there are countless thousands of threads missing.” Lightning flashed in his eyes, accusing and fierce. Felix got the impression that they were viewing some other vista instead of rugged, snowcapped peaks. “This is the product of your inaction.”

  Phaedor exhaled a forceful breath, as toward a disagreement long unresolved. “I didn’t create the realms. It’s not my role to change them.”

  Baelfeir’s gaze hardened upon him. “Cephrael could do something about it if he chose.”

  The zanthyr arched a brow. “What could he do about it?”

  The Demon Lord cracked a smile at this question. “You would have me tell you my intentions.” He looked him over appreciatively as he chuckled. “No, I won’t make this that easy.”

  The zanthyr tossed off a shadowed smile. “It was worth a try.”

  They studied each other quietly for a time then, as two reunited friends after long years apart, both equ
ally unaffected by the whirling wind and snow. Then Baelfeir shook his head, and his expression became both deeply knowing and redolent of disappointment. “You always did side with him. Even when I told you what would happen, when I pointed out to you the inevitable atrophy of the strands.”

  “You wanted me to betray my oath.”

  “Your oath doesn’t require you to stand in solidarity with his misguided notions.”

  The zanthyr gave him a half-smile. “Nor with yours.”

  Baelfeir laughed at this. He clapped the zanthyr on the arm in a companionable grip. “How refreshing to find someone unchanged by time’s passage.”

  “Other than yourself.”

  “No, no, my friend. I have changed since last I dominated this realm. Otherwise your young Felix would be drooling at my feet right now.” His electric gaze licked over Felix then, voluminous with meaning.

  Felix glowered at him.

  Baelfeir returned his attention to Phaedor and sighed dramatically. “I find the game of compelling thousands of mortal minds increasingly mundane.”

  “He will be fain to hear it.”

  Baelfeir gave him a look. “You know I only entered into a conquest of mankind to get his attention...which, I admit, in retrospect, did not achieve the result I’d been hoping for.”

  “As usual, you went too far.”

  “I went too far?” Baelfeir roused a passionate objection. “How did he follow up that disastrous argument? With an invitation to resume our discourse? At the bare minimum, an apology?” His expression dared Phaedor to reply, blue eyes flashing. “No, indeed, but by ousting myself and every other Warlock from the Realms of Light!”

  “You buried him under a mountain and you expected him to apologize?”

  “He gave mankind the Laws of Patterning, Phaedor!” This last came out in a dangerous growl. “The very secrets by which the universe is constructed! And what did they do with them but record them dutifully in a soon to be forgotten tome and set the whole on a pedestal to rot?”

  Darkness exploded with Baelfeir’s anger, blasting the snow right out of the sky. Starlight suddened upon them, cold as the Warlock’s fury.